Balance
by redheadleela
Summary: My first ever Bones fiction. Just a little piece of booth/bones cuteness. No real spoilers, but based in season 3


Author Note: I do not own 'Bones' nor do I have any right to it. I hope no-one plans to sue me for this. This little ficlet is loosely set at the end of season 3. But to be honest it doesn't matter much.

Only spoilers are the appearance of Cam and the bit about the bath but feel free to ignore them.

As Booth started to run himself a bath, he sighed. Often after cases like this he felt drained but this time was worse and he didn't know why. Perhaps it was the age of the female victim, maybe it was the fact that she was pregnant when she had been murdered. He just knew he wasn't going to shake this one off so easily. "If only I had a partner who understood these feelings, I could to talk to them about it!" He chuckled to himself as he once again had to remind himself that Bones was human, just socially challenged.

The knock at his front door startled him and he slipped on the condensation that had gathered on the floor, he steadied himself and walked towards the door, detouring to pick up his gun off the coffee table. "Who is it?" He yelled towards the door,

"Me." Came the answer, Booth rolled his eyes as he marvelled at the lack of logic in anyone saying that, especially since the voice belonged to the master of logic.

He opened the door smiling, "Hey Bones! What brings you round here?"

She shifted from foot to foot looking awkward, after a long pause she handed him a carrier bag, "I have Chinese take out." She smiled nervously.

He chuckled and stood aside so that she could come in, "I'm just glad you knocked this time, and how is it you always know when I'm going to have a bath?!"

"Oh." She flushed scarlet and avoided his eyes, but before his mind could wander too much as to the cause of her embarrassment, she answered his earlier question, "I thought you might wanna talk over the case... but if you're busy..." She shifted her feet around again.

"Who said I was busy?" Seeing her this uncomfortable made his heart ache, and made him realise that maybe she did understand the feelings this case had caused him. "Did you get it from our regular place?"

She nodded still looking worried.

"You wanna tell me what's on your mind?"

Bones started unpacking the food, anyone else would think she hadn't heard them or that she was ignoring them. Booth knew better. He got up and fetched some plates and cutlery.

As he returned she looked at him, her eyes full of the emotions that had been bubbling below the surface, "Why?"

I carefully put down the plates. "Why what?"

"Why... why would he... I don't get it!"

Trying to avoid laughing at how annoyed Brennan looked at not understanding something, "You're asking me why the guy hurt that girl?"

"Yeah." She paused for a second then continued suddenly, "I mean, I know not all crimes have a motive, I know sometimes people just break the law, but... why …" She stopped as words failed her again.

I waited to see if she would continue, when she didn't I went and sat next to her, "Are we doing our usual argument about God here?"

She thought for a moment and shook her head. "I don't mean how can God let people do things like this, I mean why would someone do this? I mean people kill each other, we both know that! But there are usually reasons, pretty stupid reasons usually but still there are reasons."

Booth frowned at her, "Reasons? You mean motives?"

"Well yeah, but not just with murder. Like when you were in the army, you killed people..."

"Yeah thanks Bones I remember..."

"But you had a reason! Your duty to the country, your patriotism. But this guy... I just don't get it!"

Booth helped himself to some chow mein to resist the urge to shout at Bones for comparing his time in the service with the murdering scum they put away today.

"Do you know that the DA offered him a lesser sentence if he admitted his motives, on the record?"

"No. He did? So what did he claim his motives were?"

"He didn't."

"He didn't take the offer?"

"No."

"Why would he do that?"

Booth looked across at his partner, who at once was so smart and so naïve. "Well there are two possibilities as I see it. Wanna hear them?"

Bones nodded enthusiastically, reminding Booth strongly of his son Parker when he was offered a bedtime story.

"Either he didn't want to give people, for example ourselves and the DA, the satisfaction of an answer."

"At the expense of a longer sentence? Who would do that?!"

Booth raised an eyebrow at her, "Or he genuinely doesn't know why he did it."

The silence that followed this statement was immense. Booth simply continued eating and after a while Bones picked up her fork and joined him. They ate in silence for about half an hour until Bones finally found her voice, "So what does it mean if there really isn't a reason he did it?"

"I can't answer that for you Bones. To me it means that God has a plan for everyone and He is in control even if it doesn't seem like it or feel like it."

Bones looked even more sad, "Science can't promise me that kind of peace of mind, in fact since the universe tends towards chaos, and since entropy can only increase in our world, that makes me think this sort of senseless violence will become the routine. Can you still believe in God's plan after a case like this?"

"I do," He hesitated then added, "But cases like this do test my faith."

Over the next few days Booth and Bones found themselves talking to each other very little. Booth knew that he hadn't offended Bones, she was doing the same that he was, thinking over their discussion, wondering how much longer he could keep doing this job and about how this was the first discussion they had had about God that hadn't turned into an argument.

Bones walked back into her office, returning from yet another crime scene and yet another dead body. She was surprised to see a bunch of daffodils sat in a vase on her desk. She stopped. Surprise gifts in her office worried her, it usually meant there was a serial killer on the loose or a stalker that had breached the Jeffersonian security. She walked a little closer and saw there was a gift tag, she read it but it wasn't signed. Feeling more disturbed she wondered not only who had sent her flowers but also how they knew her favourite.

"Hey, Bones. So how long will the dirt analysis take, has Hodgins looked at it ye... what's wrong?"

Booth stopped mid-sentence at the look on Bones' face. She pointed behind her at the desk and the flowers. To her amazement Booth grinned, "Oh yeah. Well... did you read the card?"

"Yeah but I don't... Why are you grinning?"

"Expect random acts of kindness." Was all he said before he walked away, still grinning.

"But that's what the card said!" She shouted after him.

Angela appeared in her office seconds later looking curious, "What card, why are you shouting at Booth and... Oooh who sent you flowers?"

"The card with the flowers and I don't know, to the other questions. I'm confused."

Angela shook her head at Brennan and went and read the card, 'Then expect random acts of kindness.'

"So... somebody sent you a bunch of daffodils, your favourite flowers, and left a card but with a esoteric message and Booth is finding it all very funny?"

"Yes, why do you find this funny too?"

As Brennan had started speaking Angela had started grinning too. "Well it sounds to me like you have a secret admirer and since Booth finds it funny too..."

Brennan leapt up and left the room, walked up to Booth who was leaning over Hodgins' shoulder, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the side of the lab. "You sent them to me?!"

Booth looking very startled nodded.

Bones snapped back, "I thought I had another stalker!"

Booth snorted, looked serious and then said, "You know I wouldn't let one more crazy fan near you. Plus I thought you would get the message on the card."

"Well I didn't!" She turned away from him, trying to master her emotions before he saw. But he had seen her do this before.

"Hey!" He pulled at her shoulder to turn her around, "I upset you?"

She stared at the floor, there was no way she wanted him to see how true his words were, but she nodded anyway.

"You didn't get the card... It was like we discussed. Like you said about disorder and chaos." He sighed, rubbed his eyes, looked around and found that all of the squints were staring at them. He looked back at Bones who had still not raised her eyes from the floor.

"Hey." He repeated, more gently, he lifted her head by placing a single finger under her chin. He heard Angela and Cam gasp. He lowered her voice and looked her straight in her eyes, "Meet me on the roof. Please?"

She nodded and he quickly turned away and left.

Bones got to the roof first, she looked around for Booth and wondered what surprise he was going to spring on her next. She looked out at the gardens below her and realised that it had been a long time since she had really looked at them, and had seen plants as anything but potential evidence.

She was shaken from this thought by Booth walking across the roof behind her.

"Sorry I got a call I had to take." He grinned at her sheepishly.

"What were you saying in the lab, before my team freaked you out?" Brennan smiled at him gently.

He was relieved to see her smile, "Science is about randomness, right? How likely a completely random occurrence is, and finding evidence that demonstrates how something happens if we assume it isn't random."

Bones stood shocked as she took in what Booth had just said, "Well yeah... but..."

"I listen to more of what you say than you think I do." He chuckled.

"So you were meaning to refer me back to what I said about the Universe being chaos getting more chaotic?"

"Yeah, if it truly is random and disordered then there must be random pockets or incidents of kindness, goodness and love. To balance out the evil and hate, yeah?"

Brennan went back to looking over at the horizon as she thought about this. "But you don't believe that, do you? You believe that God has a plan." She replied without looking at him.

"Perhaps it's the same thing by a different name."

"Maybe."

Booth looked across to see Brennan's face, and he saw how much more peaceful she looked, possibly more than he had ever seen her. "And, I figure that we come across more than the average person's fair share of evil and hate in the course of our work." He glanced across at her to see that she was still listening. "So unless this random Universe is creating a pattern of evil, hate and bad around us, which I can't believe, there must be a rather big source of love, goodness and hope in the centre of all this devastation we see each day."

"Yeah, that makes sense, but I can't see what that could be." Brennan was taking in every word Booth was giving her, but she still didn't look at him.

"I think I know."

This finally made Brennan turn to look at him, "You do?!"

He kissed her, firmly but gently on the lips. He smiled at her and turned and walked away across the roof.

She smiled, a little stunned, and turned back to look at the view and said, "You know I think you might be right."


End file.
